chers were, and is no
better than a plastic image.--How old was I at the time?--I suppose
about 5823 years old,--that is, counting from Archbishop Usher's date of
the Creation, and adding the life of the race, whose accumulated
intelligence is a part of my inheritance, to my own. A good deal older
than Plato, you see, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon and
most of the world's teachers.--Old books, as you well know, are books of
the world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age. How many of all
these ancient folios round me are like so many old cupels! The gold has
passed out of them long ago, but their pores are full of the dross with
which it was mingled.

And so Iris--having thrown off that first lasso which not only fetters,
but chokes those whom it can hold, so that they give themselves up
trembling and breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them by the
windpipe had settled a brief creed for herself, in which love of the
neighbor, whom we have seen, was the first article, and love of the
Creator, whom we have not seen, grew out of this as its natural
development, being necessarily second in order of time to the first
unselfish emotions which we feel for the fellow-creatures who surround us
in our early years.

The child must have some place of worship. What would a young girl be
who never mingled her voice with the songs and prayers that rose all
around her with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free to
choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another would offer to carry her to
this or that place of worship; and when the doors were hospitably opened,
she would often go meekly in by herself. It was a curious fact, that two
churches as remote from each other in doctrine as could well be divided
her affections.

The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the look of a Roman Catholic
chapel. I do not wish to run the risk of giving names to the
ecclesiastical furniture which gave it such a Romish aspect; but there
were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, and there were
reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, and other elegant arrangements.
Then there were boys to sing alternately in choirs responsive to each
other, and there was much bowing, with very loud responding, and a long
service and a short sermon, and a bag, such as Judas used to hold in the
old pictures, was carried round to receive contributions. Everything was
done not only "decently and in order," but,